Bullough Mausoleum

Polished sandstone tetrastyle temple in the Doric order comprising unfluted columns on a stepped podium. Frieze of triglyphs and plain metopes. Pitched slate roof on oak timbers having cross finals to both east and western apexes. Three table top tombs to the open interior, the central tomb being of polished sandstone (that of John Bullough said to have been removed from an earlier mausoleum) and the flanking tombs of polished granite. Sandstone piers linked by chains to site perimeter.

A section of an earlier rock cut mausoleum c.1891 comprising a mosaic plaque displaying John Bulloughs coat of arms survives to a nearby hillside.

Listing

Grade A (Scotland)

Year Built

c.1900

Style

Greek Revival

History

Family mausoleum of Sir George Bullough of Kinloch Castle, Island of Rum. In 1888 the island was acquired by Sir George’s father, John Bullough, a cotton machinery manufacturer and self-made millionaire from Lancashire, England. Rum was used by the family as a hunting estate and when John Bullough died in 1891 he was interred on the west of the island, at Harris Bay, in a rock cut mausoleum.

Legend has it, that a guest of the Bulloughs remarked that the rock cut mausoleum (having mosaic tiling to the interior) was “redolent of a public lavatory in Waterloo Station”. Sir George, who had been knighted in 1901 and who had set about a programme of improvements on the island which included the building of Kinloch Castle, commissioned a new Grecian inspired family mausoleum (also at Harris Bay). Upon its completion the original rock cut mausoleum was demolished and the remains of George’s late father were reinterred within the new monument.

The body of John Bullough was joined by his son, Sir George Bullough who died in France in 1939 and that of his wife, Lady Monica who died in 1967 at the age of 98. Though Sir George and Lady Monica’s daughter, Hermione, is not interred therein her name was inscribed on the side of her mother’s tomb during recent conservation works (completed 2006).

Though the island and castle are now owned by Scottish Natural Heritage the mausoleum remains in hands of the Bullough Trustees.

Condition

In 2006 conservation works were carried out by Cumming & Co of Perth under the instruction of the Bullough Trustees and financed by the late John George Lambton. As part of these works, high level stonework to the west and east gables (in danger of complete detachment) was taken down and rebuilt; roofing timbers were treated with a wood preservative; concrete steps were re-finished in stone and replacement chain railing sourced to faithfully match original surviving remnants.

PLEASE NOTE access to the mausoleum is at present restricted (November 2017) because a part of the road has been washed away in the heavy storms.

Sources

2011. Never mind the Bulloughs. Available: http://writesofway.com/2011/02/11/never-mind-the-bulloughs/. Last accessed 10th March 2013.